The Trailsman #292 by Jon Sharpe

Author:Jon Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

9

For a breathless moment, as the attacker rushed him like a wolverine unleashed, Fargo feared this was the end of his last trail. Trying to stop that long spear seemed more dangerous than avoiding it, so he launched himself toward shore in a diving somersault, the spear missing him by a cat whisker.

The attacker immediately spun around to pursue him.

“Watch out, Skye!” Lindy cried out. “He’s right behind you!”

I can’t die bare-ass naked, Fargo told himself as he made a mad dash toward his Henry. Evidently the attacker hadn’t seen it, or he wouldn’t have to resort to rocks and spears.

The Henry was still there, all right. So was the dogged attacker—Fargo could hear his feet pounding through the surf, his raspy breathing. Only when Fargo reached out with his right arm to grab the weapon, however, did he realize the trouble he was in.

He had wisely charged the Henry earlier, but his arm, still numb from that rock to his elbow, was all but useless to him. Fargo could grip the rifle’s trigger mechanism, but not lift the Henry. Nor was there time, with his mystery assailant within spitting distance, to switch to his clumsier, slower left arm. He had perhaps one second to save his own life.

Once again his vast experience saved Fargo. Several years ago he had joined a party scouting through the Wasatch Range of Utah Territory. When Ute Indians stole all their provisions, the men came to the brink of starvation and grew so weak they couldn’t even lift their heavy rifles to shoot game. One old trapper invented something he called the “swinging snapshot,” and Fargo relied on it now to save his bacon.

He didn’t waste time trying to lift the rifle. Instead, he gripped it hard as he could and then swung his entire body around hard and fast, pulling the rifle with him. Momentum, not muscle, brought the Henry’s muzzle up just briefly; timing it perfectly, Fargo fired at the figure rushing him.

A sharp, surprised grunt, a skidding of feet, and the attacker flopped to the beach, feet jerking a few times until his nervous system caught up with the fact of death.

“Skye!” Lindy cried out hysterically. “Are you . . . Is he . . . ?”

“He’s dead,” Fargo confirmed, kneeling beside the body and feeling for a neck pulse. “I’m not.”

“Skye! Lindy!” Newt’s worried voice bellowed from camp. “You two all right?”

“No problems here,” Fargo called back. “Just keep a close eye on those prisoners.”

Shivering now in the blustery night wind, Fargo and Lindy hurriedly dressed.

“Another hired killer?” Lindy asked, looking at the body in the ghostly blue moonlight. Her voice was almost lost in the roar of the ocean.

Fargo shook his head. He had been forced to kill in self-defense, but wished he could somehow take this bullet back.

“Not a hired killer,” he said. “A paid jobber would have firearms and pick a better spot. He wouldn’t be so clumsy at killing, either. This is just a bracero.”

“A who?”

“A poor Mexican worker.

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